The Nordic Countries and the European Security and Defence Policy

IV. New disturbance to the new equilibrium?ICELAND AND THE ESDP 341As of late 2005, the stress and challenges caused for Iceland at the broaderpolitical and institutional level by the first emergence of an EU-based Europeansecurity and defence policy seemed to have been largely laid to rest. In particular,the successful mounting of two successive EU operations with NATO planningsupport showed that the institutions could work together in a complementaryfashion. The view of the ESDP in Washington (always carefullyobserved from Reykjavík) had mellowed considerably as a result of this and ofNATO’s own demonstrated ability to re-invent itself for new tasks such aspeacekeeping in Afghanistan. There appeared to be room in the security universeafter all for a strong NATO and a defence-capable EU to co-exist: perhapsall the more so since the EU was becoming increasingly explicit in conceptualizing,and attempting to use, the non-military strengths that made it sucha different creature from NATO in the first place. 60 However, this very distinctnessof the two institutions has set the scene for a possible new phase in Iceland’sown thinking about its place in the security architecture and the bestsolution for its own national security needs.The least stable element in the Icelandic security picture today is what used tobe its bedrock: namely, the future of the US military presence. Shifting prioritieshave caused the USA to reduce the total number of its personnel at Keflavíkby more than 60 per cent since the end of the cold war, from around 3300 in1990 to 1350 in October 2005. Moreover, in terms of export earnings, the netincome to Iceland from the Iceland Defense Force fell from 7.2 per cent of allsuch earnings in 1990 to 2.7 per cent in 2004 and the income as a proportion ofGDP fell from 2.6 per cent to 1.1 per cent in the same period. 61 In 1994 theUSA reduced the number of its jet fighter aircraft at the base to (a minimum of)four, and was planning to make more drastic cuts in its operations in Iceland bywithdrawing all jet fighter aircraft and the Defense Force’s helicopter rescueteam and by dismantling the US naval monitoring and detecting system instages, adopting instead a remote sensing system based on satellites. In negotiationswith the USA, the Icelandic Government managed to guarantee the con-60 Since the 1999 Helsinki European Council, the EU has prepared capability goals for non-militaryoperational inputs (police, law and justice personnel, political advisers, etc.) in addition to its militaryrapid reaction forces and more traditional humanitarian capacities. Two of the early EU operations (inBosnia and Herzegovina and the FYROM) were police missions, and in July 2004 a new-style ‘rule oflaw’ mission involving a small group of civilian advisers was launched in Georgia (EUJUST Themis).More broadly, the European Security Strategy adopted by the European Council in Dec. 2003 sets out aview of the EU’s security mission and methods in which internal security measures for the EU’s own territories;the security impact of enlargement and ‘new neighbourhood’ policies; and the use of the EU’s economicand aid resources to promote stability, democracy and development are all portrayed as contributionsto the EU’s own security interests and the interests of the international community on a par with(or even preferable to) the use of direct methods of intervention. Council of the European Union, ‘Asecure Europe in a better world: European Security Strategy’, Brussels, 12 Dec. 2003, URL .61 Eydal F., Iceland Defense Force, Interview with the authors, 2 Oct. 2005. Of those 1350 personnel,700 are there on behalf of the US Air Force and about 650 on behalf of the US Navy, which manages themilitary base.